Could This Be Fake?

How could there be anything wrong with Fel Lords? Fel Lords had emotions and desires too. Fel Lords needed entertainment too.

That was right—Usaless truly hated Sargeras to the bone, but that did not mean it had spent tens of thousands of years cooped up inside a little scythe, doing nothing but stabbing voodoo dolls every day.

Things were fine when it had an owner. It could mess with them now and then to pass the time. But when it had no owner, it could only find ways to amuse itself.

Usaless’s current owner was theoretically Evenson. But when it first saw Evenson and discovered that the kid was about to bite his finger and use his blood to claim ownership of the Compendium of Warlock Spells, it decided that unless the boy completely lost his mind, it probably would not see daylight again for the next century or so.

Since that was the case, it might as well find a way to kill this boring stretch of time. Fortunately, it had absorbed enough souls over the tens of thousands of years to play all sorts of things inside the scythe.

Thus, Usaless decided to hold a Usaless Cup Hearthstone tournament inside Usaless. Just moments ago, after tens of thousands of group-stage matches and several thousand advancement matches, Usaless had finally reached the finals.

To win this match, Usaless had devoted its full attention to it and ignored all outside matters, directly turning on call forwarding. So when Evenson’s ritual initially failed, aside from the poor quality of the sacrifices, the bigger reason was that Usaless had blocked outside calls.

But it had never expected Evenson to be so persistent. He increased the number of sacrifices and raised the spell’s output, forcibly dragging it out through the network cable despite its block. Thus, the two of them finally met in the truest sense.

Evenson ⊙_⊙

Usaless? ←_←?

Holy shit! It felt as if ten thousand Huskies were rolling around and throwing tantrums in Usaless’s heart. It had only needed two more seconds! It was about to win, and then it got forcibly disconnected?

No, that did not seem to be the most important issue right now. Even if it had disconnected, those little brats would not dare disqualify it. The most important thing now was its image!!

Over tens of thousands of years and countless owners, Usaless could swear that this was absolutely its most awkward meeting ever.

In an instant, another whirlwind of blood mist rose up. When it condensed again, the card table had vanished, replaced by a great demon with its arms crossed and nostrils pointed at the sky. In a shrill voice, it asked, "Y-y-you insolent mortal! What e-e-exactly do you summon me for?!"

Was it not a little late to think about salvaging its image now? Evenson looked expressionlessly at the demon phantom that had reappeared. He could completely understand playing a few rounds of Hearthstone when one had nothing else to do, but…

Evenson silently stepped forward and grabbed the scythe floating in the center of the magic circle.

He inspected it from the left, then the right, and knocked on it twice. Then, amid everyone’s stunned stares, he swung the scythe in a full circle and smashed it hard against the ground several times. Finally, he casually tossed it aside, reached into his backpack, and pulled out a skull. Only this old hand could probably answer his question.

That skull was Sathir. The moment it was pulled out, it floated up on its own. "Little Sorcerer, this is our second meeting, isn’t it? Couldn’t you bring out my spine along with me?"

Those were the only two parts he had left, yet Evenson had kept one hidden in his backpack. Sathir could not help complaining about it, but the chatty skull soon found a new topic. Looking at the runes on Evenson’s arm, he said, "It looks like you get along well with my two foolish disciples. They actually gave you their own marks."

Evenson raised his arm and looked at it. Since Sathir sounded so amazed, the runes the twins had placed on him were apparently not simple. But that was not the most important matter right now.

Evenson bent down and asked Sathir, "Old hand, take a look. Is that Uthalesh, the Wind Reaver, real or not?"

"Hm?" Sathir tilted forty-five degrees to the left in midair. "Is there something wrong with your brain? Who would make a fake this powerful? Of course it’s real!"

Evenson considered it and felt that made sense. He could clearly sense the terror of that scythe. If that level of presence belonged to a fake, would the genuine article not be able to obliterate heaven, earth, and air in seconds?

"But…" Evenson grabbed Sathir, pushed him forward, and pointed at the newly appeared demon phantom. "Who is that?"

After taking one look, even the flames dancing in Sathir’s eyes seemed to spell out the word idiot. "Who else could it be? Usaless."

Evenson clutched his head with both hands as though struck by lightning. "She’s Usaless, the king of the Nazreim?!"

That was right—she was! The reason Evenson was acting so strangely was because this Fel Lord was a woman!

After reappearing, Usaless was much shorter than the Fel Lords Evenson remembered, only slightly taller than an ordinary person. That did not matter; he could just assume she was underdeveloped. But on the head bearing a pair of enormous horns, she actually had flowing long hair, with side-swept bangs framing a pretty face. And hidden on her chest were two massive weapons. She wore plate armor in the style of a Fel Lord. It was utterly corrupting to public morals!

Combined with the tone of her voice from earlier, Evenson realized that the famous king of the Fel Lords, Usaless, was actually female.

"No way." Evenson wore an utterly disbelieving expression. "Fel Lords are born from fear. They do not need to beep beep to reproduce, so how could there be females? And aren’t Fel Lords sexless? Could this be one of those legendary cross-dressing big shots?!"

"Hm? You didn’t know?" Sathir opened his mouth wide, as if mocking Evenson’s ignorance. "Before joining the Burning Legion, the Fel Lord race was divided into sexless individuals and females, and their society was a typical matriarchy."

Seeing Evenson’s mouth hanging open wide enough to fit a bowl, Sathir explained, "Fel Lords specialize in mind control, and female Fel Lords possess even greater power in that regard. But they are extremely rare. When Sargeras conquered them, there were only three female Fel Lords in their entire race. Usaless was the strongest among them."

"They resisted Sargeras most fiercely because they knew Sargeras would never allow them to survive."

"Why?" Evenson asked. Based on Sargeras’s goals, he should have been delighted to gain a few more powerful subordinates—unless… "Their power had become a threat to Sargeras? No way, right?"

Sargeras was a fallen titan, the being who had destroyed the Pantheon. Could these Fel Maidens really be that formidable?!

"Mm…" Sathir thought for a moment before giving an uncertain answer. "More or less."

"Fel Lords are a matriarchal society." Usaless, who had remained silent until then, suddenly spoke. "A special existence like me possesses an innate power to command ordinary Fel Lords, much like a broodmother commands a swarm."

"Whenever and wherever it may be, every Fel Lord’s loyalty and obedience to an existence like me comes first. That is something Sargeras could never tolerate."

The Burning Legion certainly did not subscribe to the idea that the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal. Sargeras would never tolerate his subordinates maintaining absolute loyalty to anyone other than himself.

"But I remember that you did not look like this when you first appeared." Evenson remembered that when he had first summoned Usaless, she had maintained the appearance of an ordinary Fel Lord.

Usaless said, "Don’t you think that form looks more imposing?"

"It certainly does." Setting aside the difference in power, that bald, giant-bat appearance was indeed intimidating—at the very least, far more frightening than her current monster-girl appearance.

"Heh heh heh…" Usaless gave three cold chuckles. "At the card table, thirty percent depends on skill and seventy percent depends on presence. Make your opponent’s courage fail before they even play a card! That is the secret to my consecutive Usaless Cup Hearthstone championships."